Where have all the flowers gone? The Impact of COVID-19 on UK Households’ Economic Well-Being

Abstract

The United Kingdom introduced a national lockdown in March 2020, as a means to curb the rising pace of COVID-19 infections in the country. Since then, the various restrictions imposed on citizens have produced enormous social and economic consequences. However, full awareness of the mid-term and long-term impacts of such restrictive measures is still lacking. In this paper, by making use of longitudinal data from the Understanding Society COVID-19 study, consisting of nine survey waves administered to a representative sample of UK citizens from April 2020 to September 2021, we analyze the potential determinants of lack of employment and poor economic conditions, considering individuals’ length of stay in an economic hardship context and the differential effects related to their socio-demographic characteristics.